crossing a stream. Moreover, the Swede of modern times believes the rowan a safeguard against witchcraft, and likes to have on board his ship something or other made of its wood, to protect him against tempests and the demons of the water world.[1] All this only renders more conspicuous the question of the origin of the importance and sacredness of the rowan: I mention it in the hope that somebody else may answer it, for I do not pretend to be able to do so, or to regard the Eddic explanation, to which allusion has been made, as giving us the real key. Possibly the inaccessible rocks on which the tree is not unfrequently found to grow, and the conspicuous colour of its berries, may have counted for something; but that something falls decidedly short of a solution of the question. One kind of answer that would meet the case, provided it be countenanced by facts, may be briefly indicated, namely, that the berries of the rowan were used in some early period in the brewing of an intoxicating drink, or, better still, of the first intoxicating drink ever known to the Teuto-Celtic Aryans. Such a use would render the belief intelligible, that they formed part of the sustenance of the gods, and that the latter kept them jealously for themselves until they were baffled in their purpose by some benefactor of man who placed them within the reach of his race. It is needless to repeat here the somewhat parallel conjectures (p. 296), that the many virtues ascribed to the soma in Hindu religion, and the Norse account of the acquisition for man of the gift of poetry by Woden, agree in postulating as their ultimate explanation some kind of food or drink
- ↑ See Grimm's Deutsche Myth.4 ij. 1016; and Vigfusson's Icelandic-Eng. Dic. s. v. reynir.
